Fair Use Blog

Here are two new items, now available from the Fair Use Repository main site. Both are from the issue of Liberty for September 24, 1892.

• Ireland’s Need of a Free Currency, by William Bailie, in Liberty, Vol. IX.–No. 4, Whole No. 238 (September 24, 1892). 2.

  At all periods of human history it is possible to observe a combination of times and conditions that seems conspicuously ripe for the recognition and adoption of certain instalments of general truth embodied in particular ideas and principles borne mostly on the obscure banners of hitherto unnoticed reform. Such an occasion, I venture to believe, is presented by the dawning hopes to which the impending political change gives birth in the state of long-scourged and ever-suffering Ireland.... The economic regeneration of that country through the death of Interest by means of a free currency is the idea which the writer believes peculiarly fitting at this juncture of her career to inaugurate the industrial and social Revolution.

• On Picket Duty, by Benjamin Tucker in Liberty IX.4, Whole No. 238 (September 24, 1892). 1.

  Comrade Bailie’s article in this issue on Ireland’s Need of a Free Currency is suggestive. It certainly is none too early to begin to prepare that unhappy country to make the most of her freedom when she shall get it. The Irishman or Irish-American who devotes himself to that work will do his country immeasurable service. But Ireland’s situation is peculiar. Unlike all other civilized nations, her first and greatest need is free land, not free money....

  The column also includes comments on Wagner, copyright protectionism, and Whitman's verses in praise of Kaiser Wilhelm.

As usual, these transcriptions were made possible by facsimiles provided through the magnificent work of Shawn P. Wilbur at his Travelling in Liberty online archive.

Read, cite and enjoy!

Now available thanks to Shawn P. Wilbur at Contr'un:

Here's a bit of fun from the 1891 volume of The Bookseller and Newsman, where Benjamin R. Tucker got very actively involved in the debate about translations of Emile Zola's "Money." It's classic Tucker.

The American Edition of “Money.”

_____

WHAT THE PUBLISHERS SAY OF IT.

The editorial notice of The Nile Publishing Company’s edition of “Money,” by Emile Zola, in the March Newsman, was the cause of much comment in trade circles. The following correspondence from the publishers of this book will interest The Newsman readers and throw much light on the matter of translating and publishing foreign works:

The Nile Publishing Company.

Chicago, March 26, 1891.

Editor The Newsman —We are in receipt of your last issue of the Newsman, and note what you say regarding our edition of “Money.” In reply we only say we seriously regret that you should accept such a statement as true from a competing publisher and publish it before at least allowing us to make a true statement concerning our translation.

It is true that we placed “Money” on the market on the 11th of March, but we were not enabled to complete it on that date by “drawing from the scant imagination fund of our translator.” We were enabled to do so by the expenditure of several hundred dollars in having the last fifteen pages cabled to us. We acknowledge that the last few pages were not literally translated, but Zola’s sentiments were expressed.

Do you not know that not one of Zola’s novels that have been published in the United States is complete? Publishers in this country are compelled to expurgate them, for our people will not tolerate his superlative degree of realism. Then why should we be so unjustly treated when we have ...

Read the whole thing at Contr'un.